Crawfish issues

[POLARBEAR0871]

Ok so my crawfish has been hiding for about a week now in my new tank but when I first put him in there he loved it. So last night I took it upon myself to get him outta the hiding spot so when he came out he came out upside down. But when I looked at him he had a clump of black stuff attached to the bottom of his tail what is it I'm scared and curious.

 

[Oscar98]

He may be molting.

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

He did that before buy he didn't have the clump on him and actually that's what I thought at first but he looks normal

 

[Oscar98]

CN u post a pic if the clump is still there?

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Yeah I'll try

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Bout as clear as i could get it it looks like eggs to me

 

[Oscar98]

Ya those are eggs.

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Awesomeness so I'm gonna have little crawfish maybe lol

 

[Oscar98]

Well that depends if you have a male in there with her.

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Oh jeez time to go get a male

 

[Oscar98]

Unless. Some species of crayfish can store sp**m for months. If they were with a male when you got it

 

[Oscar98]

Ok what kind of crayfish do you have??

 

[Oscar98]

What color are the eggs?

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

I'm not sure I just saw it a fish store and I knew they ate off the bottom of the tank so I bought one I know it's just a normal red crawfish

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

They're black

 

[Oscar98]

Ok lol. Well what color are the eggs. A lot of crayfih can store sp so if the eggs are black or brown they are already fertilized

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Oh my god they're black so I'm having little babies haha

 

[Oscar98]

Dont ask me how to take care of em lol. The only thing i have to do with crayfish is catching them in the summer and feeding them toy oscar.

 

[POLARBEAR0871]

Haha ok that's fine I'll figure it out

 

[Craw Chief]

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the females can store sperm for a long time before laying their eggs. Some crawfish can actually just clone themselves. Either way, those definitely appear to be fertilized eggs.

If you get some more pictures of the crawfish, specifically the top, I could help you identify the species.

For the babies, your mom crawfish will continue to hide like that until they hatch. If you want to raise the babies, it'd be good to have a separate tank with a sponge filter or sponge prefilter on the filter intake. The fry could get sucked up otherwise. You could just put the mother in the fry tank now until the babies hatch.

In the fry tank, there need to be a lot of hiding spaces for the fry. Otherwise they will cannibalize one another.

General crawfish care requires hard water and of course your regular 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 0 nitrates. If you have any more questions, just let me know or check out http://www.reddit.com/r/crayfish